[1] Anthony gives a broad overview of the linguistic and archaeological evidence for the early origins and spread of the Indo-European languages, describing a revised version of Marija Gimbutas's Kurgan hypothesis.

The splitting of the major branches of Indo-European (except perhaps Greek) can be correlated with archaeological cultures, showing steppe influences in a way that makes sense chronologically and geographically in light of linguistic reconstructions.

7); describes the interaction between Balkan farmers and herders and steppe foragers at the Dniester River (in western Ukraine) and the introduction of cattle (ch.

He proposes that "the Proto-Indo-European homeland was located in the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas in what is today southern Ukraine and Russia.

[9]Anthony, following the methodology of Ringe and Warnow, proposes the following sequence:[10] A key insight is that early expansions of the area in which Indo-European was spoken were often caused by "recruitment", rather than only by military invasions.

With the Yamnaya culture as a nucleus candidate, the original recruitment would be to a way of life in which intensive use of horses allowed herd animals to be pastured in areas of the Ukrainian / South Russian steppe, outside of river valleys.

[20] The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE),[20] located at the middle Volga, which was connected with the Danube Valley by trade networks,[21] also had cattle and sheep, but they were "more important in ritual sacrifices than in the diet.

"[22] According to Anthony, "the set of cults that spread with the first domesticated animals was at the root of the Proto-Indo-European conception of the universe"[22] in which cattle had an essential role.

[29] The presence of domesticated horses in the steppe cultures was an important clue for Marija Gimbutas's development of her Kurgan hypothesis.

[36] Between 4200 and 3900 BCE, many tell settlements in the lower Danube Valley were burned and abandoned,[36] and the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture showed an increase in fortifications[37] and moved eastwards, towards the Dniepr.

[38] Steppe herders, archaic Proto-Indo-European-speakers, spread into the lower Danube valley in about 4200–4000 BCE, causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe.

[41] According to Anthony, the herders, forming the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka complex,[note 3] probably were a chiefly elite from the Sredni Stog culture at the Dniepr Valley.

The steppes became drier and cooler, herds needed to be moved frequently to feed them sufficiently, which was made possible by the use of wagons and horseback riding, leading to "a new, more mobile form of pastoralism.

"[66] The Yamna horizon is reflected in the disappearance of long-term settlements between the Don and the Ural and the brief periods of usage of kurgan cemeteries, which begin to appear deep into the steppes between the major river valleys.

[73] According to Anthony, it may have originated with "steppe clans related to the Yamnaya horizon who were able to impose a patron-client relationship on Tripolye farming villages.

[75] Between 3100 and 2800/2600 BCE, when the Yamna horizon spread fast across the Pontic Steppe, a real folk migration of Proto-Indo-European-speakers from the Yamna-culture took place into the Danube Valley,[76] moving along Usatovo territory toward specific destinations, reaching as far as Hungary,[77] where as many as 3000 kurgans may have been raised.

[78] Bell Beaker sites at Budapest, dated c. 2800–2600 BCE, may have aided in spreading Yamna dialects into Austria and southern Germany in the west, where Proto-Celtic may have developed.

2100 BCE, Poltavka and Abashevo herders moved into the upper Tobol and Ural river valleys, close to marshes which were needed for the survival of their herds.

[94] According to Krim, Anthony's "debate is with the archaeologist Colin Renfrew" and his Anatolian hypothesis, which proposed that early Proto-Indo-European developed by around 6500 BCE, originating in the famous Neolithic site at Çatalhöyük in Turkey.

[94] According to Krim, Anthony offers convincing logic that the rate of linguistic change, as preserved in the first inscribed-tablet evidence of Indo-European branches as Hittite and the Vedic texts in India, rests on the invention of the wagon wheel and domesticated wool sheep between 4000 and 3500 B.C.E.

and demonstrates the spread of its horseback-riding innovations westward up the Danube River in Central Europe and eastward over the Iranian plateau into the Indus Valley.The Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association's Rocky Mountain Review called the work "an archaeological feat" that "bridges the stubborn gap between linguists and archaeologists."

The review noted with approval Anthony's drawing upon Soviet and Eastern European studies that had previously been unknown to western researchers.

[95] The most critical review was Philip Kohl's "Perils of Carts before Horses: Linguistic Models and the Underdetermined Archaeological Record" in American Anthropologist.

According to Kohl, "such a procedure almost necessarily means that the archaeological record is consistently manipulated to fit the linguistic model that it is meant to confirm; the reasoning is circular.

"[96] Kohl further notes that Anthony's reconstruction is bold and imaginative but is also "necessarily selective" and sometimes misleading when it relies on a rather limited number of items.

According to Kohl, horseback riding was almost invisible in the Ancient Near Eastern pictorial record until practically the end of the 3rd millennium BCE.

Anthony writes extremely well and masterfully describes material culture remains, teasing out incredible amounts of information on the nature and scale of subsistence activities, social structure, and even ritual practices.Kohl's critique was challenged by others, who noted that Anthony's extensive review of archaeological evidence suggested that he was using the linguistic model not to "'confirm' the 'archaeological record'" but "to interact with and help to explain [the archaeological record].